Estimated BVI Visitor Expenditures

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Sure makes you wonder why they spent a dime on cruise ships!

Interesting, the huge jump between 2014 and 2015 in both cruise ship expenditures and day trip expenditures..

I question that too. Cruise ship arrivals were down in 2014 and 2015. New management at Soggy Dollar raised the price of painkillers in 2015 so the day tripper number might be correct. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

How do they track what day trippers or cruise ship passengers are spending other than entry fees?

Each ship does on-board surveys. Thousands and thousands of them. That data is used to "sell" the ship to all the islands and ports when the time comes to put future stops out for bid. Not all ships and passengers are created equal. Just like conventions. The teachers might spend at one level and the cardiologist and the drug companies with them another.

If you dig into the actual reports. The BVI thinks the cruise ships are providing for more than 500 and less than 1,000 jobs across all the islands.

Here is the type of data gathered from passengers and there is also real data from the excursions sold directly on the ships before the ship hits the dock.


The passenger and crew surveys were designed to collect data for onshore spending and visit satisfaction by both passengers and crew. While the crew survey was slightly shorter than the passenger survey, both surveys were designed to collect the following information:


- hours spent ashor

- expenditures by category, including shore tours, food & beverages, clothing, etc.;

-visit satisfaction, including shore tour, friendliness of residents, prices, shopping,
etc.;

- likelihood of returning for a land-based vacation; and


- demographic characteristics, including country of residence, age group, income, etc.

This is all very mature sophisticated business with each ship and cruise company selling each visit of each ship to the cruise operators advantage. The cruise ship companies with their completely mobile infrastructure and passengers control all the cards.

This is a very interesting view of business in BVI. It is certainly telling that the charter boat rentals are about 5X greater than cruise ship revenue. So where is the government investing???

If anyone understands how this information was gathered, some questions:
- What is the difference between the categories of "cruise ships" and "day trippers"? Is the former just the fees paid by the ships?
- In what category would you find the $$$ spent ashore by charterers?

Thanks

My goodness! More BVI stats published than I have seen is quite a while. Here are the stats on entries. For those dispariging the need for a better ferry service please notice that of the 393,000 overnight visitors in 2015, 300,000 arrived by ferry. Also as to the idea that the ferry is primarily a service for locals, 2/3 of the ferry arrivals were visitors. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Those numbers are the "estimated" total for each group. "Daytrippers" are those riding the ferry or rented boat over from St. Thomas or St. John for the day. Keep in mind those are estimated gross revenues. A drink at some beach bars may be very profitable with cash staying in BVI. A charter boat rental may see much of the money going to bank for the loan or the international marketing operator like TUI/Moorings. My point not all dollars spent not are all tourist equal. When it comes to investing in the charter business? Where would you put more boats at the docks or in the tourist anchorages? That is why the long range plan is the same or fewer tourist spending more money per day.

Pretty funny how they have a table with estimates and those estimates are in the tens and in some categories hundreds of millions of dollars. And - drum roll 'cause I find this to be the funny part - the estimate is good to the penny. That's some estimate!